Is my bitcoin miner still running? Maybe... It uses at $4.30/day in electricity Emits somewhere around $1.30 in heat So it costs around $3.00/day Did it make that? Calendar has turned into calendar soup We've talked about coin recovery a fair bit already Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs): fungible: Any one is as good as any other Like dollars, crude oil, etc. non-fungible: It matters which one you have Like most stuff we have cryptocurrency is fungible An NFT is a proof of ownership of a file A hash value of the file, anyway Public key X transfers file with hash Y to public key Z If you have the private key for Z, you own Y And therefore all files which has to it Started in 2014, "Quantum" Value went up really fast, and down really fast Could have made you rich "Ownership" here is just in the blockchain Some NFTs have legal ways to assign copyright to the NFT owner That adds a bit of legality to it But there's nothing that stops people from making a "fake" copy Which blockchain? Usually ethereum 2nd biggest currency, but it's actually a more complicated system Has an Ethereum Virtual Machine, etc. Easy enough in the general way blockchains work Copying, music, etc: Physical goods: "copy" is usually different from "original" Patent, and the profitability of invention This does lead to software patent wars Status symbols What will people not do to impress each other? Does that really make a "legit" NFT worth more? A copy is really worth a lot less at fancy art auctions Not for "decorative" art In a sense, copying doesn't always matter More glory for the proper owner "Pump and Dump" schemes: Gamestop stock rally was more than just a pump and dump scheme Involved short sellers, etc But in general, pump Bill Gates: NFTs based on Greater Fool Theory Let's differentiate between this kind of thing and the pyramid scheme: Pyramid scheme: Money flows to the top, bottom of pyramid loses Kids and stickers They sometimes involve real money too A bit of a wrapup about value: Anything somebody will exchange for something else is valuable This includes services as well as physical items Why would anybody be willing to purchase something? Need: food, shelter, transportation, etc Safety: fire extinguishers, door locks, guns, etc Vanity: fancy cars, fancy clothes, NFTs, cosmetics, etc Investment: stocks, bitcoin, bulldozers, NFTs, etc Pleasure: movies, unhealthy food, video games, headphones, etc Benevolence: wells, goats, clothes, vaccines, etc Health: glasses, fillings, vitamins, gym memberships, etc ... and many other reasons Many things fall into more than one category fancy cars could be for pleasure, transportation, status benevolence can be for vanity or investment What one person deems valuable might not be valuable to another Wim Hof (very) Brief history of bitcoin: Created in 2008, by "Satoshi Nakamura" Nakamoto mined about 1 million BTC Turned bitcoin over to the Bitcoin Foundation Lead developer Gavin Andreson Bitcoin Foundation has a bit of a mixed history Grew in use and value, but not steadily Price history is really shaky What else could we use blockchain for? Wikipedia article has some ideas In general, it can be used to authenticate the history of a block proof-of-work is really not appropriate for a lot of uses My opinion: It's still searching for the right problem What we have left: Elliptic Curve Cryptography Proof of Stake